YouSaid · the spoken record

Brett Hagler

lines on the record: 29
first: 2015-11-28
most recent: 2015-11-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That's something that we were working on right now. We're looking to announce our second country location by the end of the year. The thing, as I mentioned, that's the most critical to where we expand is our nonprofit partner that we're going to be working with. So we do have a number of locations right now that we're considering. And really the final decision is going to come down to which partner on the ground shares our values, is able to kind of keep up with the technological demands that we do have of them, as well as being able to get the work done on the ground. It could be somewhere that was recently hit by a disaster like Nepal, or it could be an area like El Salvador where there's kind of been many internally displaced populations for a number of reasons, such as, you know, drug, you know, drug trafficking and things of that sort.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, to Ali's point, this past weekend, I was in New York for the Clinton Global Initiative, and there was a lot of other way bigger nonprofits than us there. And I was telling them what we're doing. And I won't mention names of the organizations. And, you know, they kind of looked at it as like, whoa, that sounds great, but we could never do that, you know. Maybe they can't just because they're so big and their ops are already set up. But from day one, we're baking it into our operations. And then we're going to be as formidable as possible to make it scalable.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think from the donor experience side and the tech side, it's very evident that this is a better way to do it. It's more transparent. The donors appreciate this as opposed to other options, right? Like that's been acknowledged and proven. The thing where we get a little bit of shade for is, you know, well, how do we know that we can trust your local partners and things like that? And I think the best way for us to explain that is by proving that we're building these homes in a very short amount of time and we're accounting for every single home that we're saying we're funded. And it's like, look, this is working. It is efficient and it is scalable and it makes a lot more sense than to try to build your own in-house capacity to do these things, collaborate, right? Like use partnerships, use channels, just like SaaS companies do.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The solid communication that we need in order to get those videos back to our donors, in order to make sure that these homes are being built, in addition to having the necessary structures in place on the ground to actually get it done.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the key there is the organizations on the ground that we choose to partner with. So our model is, you know, we're not the ones down there making relationships with contractors and governments. We rely on extremely reputable nonprofit partners that are uniquely positioned in the countries that we're going to be working in to do that work. So, you know, making sure that they're an organization that has the necessary connections with, say, the government entity so that the families do own the land that the homes sit on that have been building quality infrastructure for years. So, you know, making sure that when the next earthquake or the next hurricane happens, that, you know, the homes that we're building are not going to fall apart and organizations that also have partnered with other organizations and have done it very well. So, you know, ensuring that we have very trustworthy partners that are going to work well with us have, you know,”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That are now new story donors and exposed to news story that we could have never reached, right? And then the viral piece is 20% of them will start their own campaign. So there's a virality piece to how we grow and scale as opposed to old school traditional charity models, which is more of a direct sales approach, some inside sales approach, galas, things like that. We're actually having active ambassadors go spread news story digitally. And then our responsibility is to create the best product possible that's going to make people love it and want to engage.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give you one example of how we're scaling. So there was actually a gentleman from A16Z named Chris Lyons. He's a good man. And he said, I'll agree with you there. He set up what we call a birthday campaign. And what that means is you come onto our platform and start your own fundraising campaign. And so birthday is just one example. But basically, instead of asking people for gifts or like a dinner party that you have every year, it's, hey, let's ask for donations instead. So you set up a campaign, right? And then you send that out to your friends and family. On average, that campaign brings in 13 new people.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. And so you think the vision going forward in five years, there will be dozens of new story communities around the world. In that, you'll have, of course, the homes because here's the foundation and you'll have a school, clean water and sanitation, a health clinic, anything else that community needs for that particular climate.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we are in the business of building communities and homes are a part of that. So the home are all together in one community. Like I said, there's a water co-op there. There's solar power there. We believe that, you know, neighborhoods and sustainable communities is really what helps individuals thrive.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we have 38 that are completed. And that's because, again, over the summer, we had a huge number of homes that were funded. And so we have about 25 that are currently in construction. And the rest are set to be built before the end of the year.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we have funded now 131 homes. During OYC, we did this campaign. We said, let's pick a crazy goal during YC. And so we said, we're going to try to fund 100 homes in 100 days. And we launched this campaign and we got fortunate and we did 100 homes in 91 days. And so those are some of them have already been completed and all the other ones are under construction right now.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I also want to throw out anything that was great. I want to throw out an example of the Red Cross because you mentioned that. So the Red Cross, this is an article that came out a couple months ago. They raised what was called a half billion dollars for Haiti after the earthquake. And they made a lot of promises to build homes and things like that. And after five years, they've built six homes in this area they made promises to. And we won't go into details of exactly why that happened, but we know that by not having allocation for every dollar that comes in, there's trouble in when they go to distribute that money. It's just like this big bucket of money. And so what we do is not only in our experience, not only is it great for the donor to know the exact family they're helping, but it really helps our operations because we go, okay, this money is tagged.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And as far as measuring success, the most obvious answer is the number of homes and infrastructure projects we're able to build, right? But that's just the first kind of layer. Like, yes, we are getting people out of these extremely dangerous tents into safe homes. And that, of course, is great. But like Brett mentioned earlier, we do know in our hypothesis that we're proving is that homes don't just provide safety. They have these farther reaching implications again into health and to education and to income opportunities. So that's when we get more granular into kind of really showing why a home is the best investment when you're talking about poverty alleviation, when you're talking about improving communities.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, so with the operational bank account, one, we will make everything public, right? So people will see what we're making public. And we're also operating at a basically a 6x. So $1 that's put into operations is going to yield $6 out into the field. That's our goal. And that's what we're striving to hit. And so people know, okay, what's going inside the input versus the output and we'll make that as transparent as possible.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Value sustainability as well. So we are putting, you know, we are putting measures in place so that we're not always reliant on private investors and foundations for our operational costs. Our goal is that we would only need those outside funders when we're looking to expand or to do something brand new. But we are putting measures in place right now in order to sustain ourselves. One, that we launched very recently is the option to allow our donors to opt in to contribute to new story operations. That's been going extremely well over 60% of our donors actually opt in to help fund our operations. So that's one strategy.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, real quick, for answer that, I just want to finish the experience. So, you would donate the exact family that you're giving to. And then when the home is built, we actually take a video of the family when they move into their new home. And we send it back to every single donor. So that's kind of the full experience. And so right now over primarily the next two years, we set it up. We set the simplest way to do this is just have two bank accounts, right? So one is for public donations that goes to the home construction. Our promises will never touch that. The other one's for ops. And what we're doing right now is basically raising an angel round of operations through private donors just to cover the operations.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there's a water cooperative, so that's, you know, those are a really important question because those are things that we definitely think about. We want to build sustainable thriving communities and energy and water, those things are critical. So there's a water co-op that is run by the community. And the area is actually lit by solar energy that the Clinton Foundation has partnered with and provides.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, built with concrete, reinforced with steel rebar. The family's also, what's really important is the families own the plot of land that the home sit on. A huge issue in development is when building happens and then, you know, maybe a few months later or a few years later, a government entity or a private owner wants to use that land for something else. And then those people are then again displaced. They get booted out. Exactly. And we are building solutions that last not just the homes or constructed to last, but these families are able to stay there. And that's really impactful because, you know, that means that we're not just impacting those individual families, but we're really providing a foundation for generations to come.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is a concrete block home. They're built to Miami-Dade County and Broward County hurricane standards where they're built to last and withstand natural disasters that might continue to come to Haiti. They are 400 square foot homes.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so you come onto our site and you get to meet a family, like literally see the mom and her kids. You see their ages, their stories, their picture, and then you give directly to them 100% of your donation goes to funding their home. One home costs $6,000 right now. Once the home is funded, it then takes about two and a half months to build the home, which is all built by local construction workers.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and so the thing here is the way we think about this our business model is actually to make as much money as possible, right? So the only difference is that the revenue we're bringing in is being distributed back out to families, right? But the way that organizations set up as far as how we set up our operations, how we set up our platform, how we set up for scale, our product, all those things is the exact same way that a for-profit technology company is set up. And we believe that's the best way. That's the way nonprofits should operate. And there should be no difference in mindset, right? Because you're trying to bring in the same amount of money or you're trying to bring an incredible amount of money with efficiencies and build a product that people love. And so that's how we think about it.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's how new story came about. That's how we get early traction. And then we applied to white combinator and said, look, we believe the future of philanthropy is with two things. It's transparency and then technology to scale the impact. Just so happened why combinator believe the same thing”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really, two problems we're solving for. The first one is what we've been talking about, which is this, the problem on the ground, the life problem. And then the other one is how the idea for news story came. And that's just, we thought, you know, traditional charity was very old school. We had a lot of problems such as a lack of transparency, a lack of efficiency, a lack of innovation. And that's how we got the idea for new story, you know, it's how a lot of startups start. It was I was actually trying to give to a bigger organization online and my experience was just so poor. And I had no idea where my money was going to go. I didn't know who it was going to help. And at the end of the day, I just felt like a drop in the bucket. And so we wanted to create an experience that was the opposite of that.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Income opportunities. I think a great example is probably from my personal life. So I was a teacher for America teacher. I taught in Anacostia, which is in southeast DC. So, my students about a third of them at some point in the year were homeless, if not for the entirety of the year. And if you think about their kind of their life when they're homeless, when they come to school, you know, if they come to school, first of all, their attendance is impacted, right? If attendance is impacted, your performance and then your overall academic achievement is impacted. So that's really where kind of education ties in. And then of course, you know, if you don't know where you're going to be sleeping at night, depending on the safety of that situation, your mental health is impacted. Many times your physical health. And that's true of my students. That was true of their siblings. That was true of their parents. Their parents' ability to attain or retain a job was impacted. And so, you know, that's here in the US. And then, you know, those problems are just, you know, magnified when you're in the developing world.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I mean, the news story kind of says itself, these people have been living this same old story for so long, and we want to come in and literally create a new story in their lives. And, you know, the optimistic side here is that there is a solution to this problem, right? And so when I saw it, you know, I saw the tangible tent. It was like, okay, if you could just get them out of that and then into a safe home, all of these like life-threatening dangers would be solved. And so, and that's what we originally set up News Story to do was to simply take them out of that tent slum, bring them into a new community that immediately solves those dangers, and then actually becomes a platform or house becomes the foundation for really the three pillars that people get excited about, which is access to education, sustained health, and income or entrepreneurial opportunities. And so that just really excited us that a home not only saved people's lives, but it had”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if you just think of like simple inconveniences in our daily life, right? Like here in Menlo Park today, it's a little rainy, right? It's slightly inconvenient. But when it rains and you're living in a piece of tent that's tattered in multiple places, that's a catastrophic event. Think of someone with like a newborn baby, right? It rains, the floor becomes mud, you know, rodents start to come in. The entire family, large families are crowded on one bed. They're sopping wet. Everything is drenched. Something as simple as rain can be a catastrophic event for a family down there.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so probably the worst problem is, and when you kind of think of Maslow's hierarchy, like safety is at the bottom, right? So if you think of a tent that has a mom with three young kids in it, they have no protection. It's just a tarp tent. So what happens is, you know, danger is like child abduction and sex trafficking, this horrible diseases from the sanitation inside these things. Another example that's just crazy, but it's so hot inside of these. Like imagine it being 98 degrees inside of a Bluetarp tent with no ventilation. People are starting to go blind, Michael. It's crazy. So those are like, you know, when you think past this, the initial couple months of being in a temporary place, those are the problems that come forth.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so the story starts I was down in Haiti and on a mission trip and actually went to a tent slum where these people were placed because of the earthquake back in 2010. So when the earthquake happened, there was a lot of immediate help, temporary relief. Tents were given out as band-aids which were needed at the time, right? But they were only supposed to last for about four months. Turns out they've been around now for five and a half years. And so I was down there in the tent slums and learned about the problems these people face.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so what we do is we crowdfund houses for families living in danger around the world. And the name New Story is really what we go by. The charity piece is there to not confuse people because sometimes they'll think that we are a for-profit organization because of the way our platform is set up. And so we have that in there just to make it simple.”
2015-11-28 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Using Social Tools to Build Homes for Those Most in Need · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source